


Hunting

by Lif61 (UltimateFandomTrash)



Series: #SPNDBCC [11]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood, Day 11, Dead People, Flamethrowers, Gen, Head Injury, Hunting, Monster of the Week, SPNDBCC, Strangulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28017162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UltimateFandomTrash/pseuds/Lif61
Summary: Sam goes to Sioux Falls to help Jody with a hunt involving mutilated dead bodies.
Relationships: Jody Mills & Sam Winchester
Series: #SPNDBCC [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2038180
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Hunting

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 11 of #SPNDBCC on tumblr by @foundfamily4eva.
> 
> Prompt: hunting.
> 
> Did I steal this from _Teen Wolf_? Yes, I did.

“Well, that’ll be our missing girl,” Jody commented, referring to the dead body in front of her and Sam.

Sam grimaced, and then took a step closer.

The body itself was tied to a tree with a thin, but strong, wire around the neck, and the head had been bashed in. The throat had been slit as well. The body had slumped, legs having gone limp, and the head hung forward at a disturbing angle. Blood was everywhere.

He leaned down, examining the head.

“The skull’s _cracked_ ,” he noticed.

“Any brain matter?”

He winced. “Yeah.”

She stepped forward now, going to examine the body. She covered her mouth and nose as she leaned in. As sheriff she probably didn’t see as many bodies as forensics did, though Sam knew she liked to get out in the field, especially when it came to hunting.

“This poor girl,” Jody commented. “Someone really wanted her dead. You seen anything like this before, Sam?”

“I was actually going to ask you the same thing.”

Jody just lifted her head and stared at him, eyes wide with disbelief.

“What? This is your jurisdiction,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but we don’t find dead bodies that look like a serial killer got to them” she argued. She shook her head, and started trekking up the grassy hill. “I gotta call this in.”

Sam searched around the area, looking for hex bags, or anything, testing for EMF. He found nothing, except for a footprint. It was small, probably from a woman.

Jody finished calling a forensics team and a few deputies, and Sam said, “Hey, I think I found something!”

She went back over to him, and Sam pointed out the footprint that was behind the tree.

“So not a ghost,” she said.

“Yeah, they can’t leave that kind of mark.”

“Could we be looking at a person?”

Sam grimaced, and turned to the dead body again. “Maybe.”

Research. Always research. Sam was having a difficult time with it because he truly hadn’t seen this before. Throat slashed, strangled, head bashed in… It felt like a new kind of messed up, especially since the killer could be a human.

He wondered which wound had killed the girl. All three of them could’ve done the job.

For now, Jody was at the sheriff’s station, searching through case files from before her appointment as sheriff. She’d call him if she found anything.

Sam sat at the rickety table in his motel room, laptop out in front of him. He had a multitude of links open, and at the moment, he was digging deep, using a search engine that wouldn’t alert anyone or be saved on the laptop’s history. Besides, it wasn’t as if Google would give him answers about someone getting violently murdered.

He didn’t have any ideas either. What could this thing even be?

“Human,” he muttered to himself. “Human…”

_Could be a sacrifice._

With that in mind, he was able to make his research a little more specific. It took an hour, least, but he managed to find something. It wasn’t much, just a picture tucked away in an online copy of a very old book, a description underneath.

Sam frowned, examining the picture again. The renderings weren’t realistic, of course, having come from a time where the art styles were still being figured out. It was before the Renaissance. The book itself was at least a century old, so Sam wasn’t sure he trusted the source.

He searched the description attached to the image.

His phone started ringing.

“Hello,” he answered after hitting the green arrow and putting the phone to his ear.

“Sam, I found something.”

“I think I did too. You first.”

“So there were deaths like these _fifty years ago_.”

“Crap, that long?”

“And aside from that, there hasn’t been anything else. There were nine like it, all victims killed in the same way. Of course, the records aren’t as detailed as they would’ve been now, but it’s something. Could we be dealing with a copy cat killer?”

Sam shook his head, bewildered. “It would’ve had to be someone who knew about all this. I kind of doubt it.”

“Alright, what’d you find?”

“So I couldn’t find anything at first,” he explained, going back to the image. “But it looks like we’re dealing with a sacrifice.” Sam thought he could hear Jody wince on the other end of the phone. “Yeah,” he commented. “Um… I’m gonna hit the library, see what I can find.”

“I’ll look into public records.”

“Good idea. Reconvene in an hour?”

“It’s a date.”

Sam smiled, loving that he was working with Jody on this despite the horrors they were dealing with. It had been way too long since he’d seen Jody. Besides, he’d needed to get out. Dean and Castiel were dealing with the Mark, and Sam, who always felt anxious and just a little terrified around his brother now, had desperately needed something to drag him away from all that.

He grabbed his laptop, and his notes, and stuffed them into a satchel, and then he was on his way.

The first thing Jody did was search through the list of names she’d gotten from the old police file.

“Carter O’Connell,” she mused as she stood on a ladder and dug through a set of old files. She found the manilla folder with his information. There wouldn’t be much since this was before computer records, but it was worth something. It’d have his full name, age, family members, social security number, address, and history of work.

She climbed off the ladder, and brought the file with her. She went to look at the archival cards. The cabinets that stored them were a dark brown, and covered in dust. She blew the dust away, quickly leaning back to avoid breathing it in.

Jody put the file she’d found on top, and started searching.

“Ha!” she cried, as she found where the next previous victim’s file could be found. 

It was annoying that she had to do this, but she’d already looked through the file of the girl they’d found, and she couldn’t find anything of note. But maybe with more information she and Sam could make some sort of connection.

Jody went to go get the next file.

At the library, after taking a lot of books out that led to more books due to the information he found and wrote down, Sam ended up looking at a small shelf in the mythology section. The book he grabbed now was on Celtic mythology, druids and sacrifice.

As he read he realized that druids had committed some human sacrifices, except it had been rare. Searching through the index led him to a part of the thick book on beings called daraich. Sam found the page, right near the end of the book, and started to read.

He frowned as he read.

_According to historical evidence, there was a subset of druids known as the daraich (singular: darach). The word druid translates to “knower of the oak,” or “wise oak.” Darach itself does not have a disturbing meaning at the present date, though for centuries it translated to “dark oak,” with the prefix of the word “da-” meaning “dark.”_

Sam immediately took notes, underlining the word “ _DARACH_ ” and then writing underneath it, “dark druid.” The text hadn’t specifically said that, but “wise oak,” being turned into “dark oak” was all the information he needed.

He searched through the book some more, and stopped on a disturbing artist’s rendition of the ritual sacrifice. It wasn’t exact, though the tapestry that the picture in the book was of showed the same injuries as the ones they’d found on that girl. Bruises around the neck from strangulation, blood leaking from the head, and blood coming from the throat.

The description underneath the image described that the dark druids would commit violent sacrifices in order to gain power.

This led Sam to reading the entire page.

_While the deaths themselves were thought to grant power as someone’s lifeblood was spilled out, the word “sacrifice” in primary sources suggests that it was an offering to a deity. “Sacrifice,” when looking at the Latin translation as sacrificium, means, “Something of meaning offered up to a deity.” This is relevant due to the many definitions of sacrifice pointing to a relationship between the person committing the sacrifice, and the deity, along with the Roman invasion of Celtic territories at around 1000 BC._

_The druids themselves did commit human sacrifices during their Iron Age, but the acts were later condemned. Instead, they would offer up animals, weapons, and food. Due to the nature of druidism having a close connection to the natural energies of the life of the earth, the deities were thought to be in the spirit of the world itself. More specifically, lakes, and trees, and growing things._

_This belief falls to the wayside as deities are accepted as beings rather than things or places._

_To understand the sacrifices, one must first understand the nature of the Celtic beliefs. Possibly as early as the year 500 BC, the celts believed in sacred beings that could walk the earth, or inhabited what was known as the “Otherworld.” The sacrifice of life was attributed to a triad of these beings, a triad of sacrificial entities: Taranis, Esus, and Toutatis. These were deities of strength and power. Sacrificing to them was thought to create strength in the person committing the sacrifices._

_Primarily, the sacrifices were animals, with the druidic idea that the blood would please these gods. Yet when the subset of dark druids came into being, these sacrifices turned gory, with the sacrificial victims being humans. Supposedly, the human sacrifices granted greater strength, and even powers from the Otherworld. Typically, these sacrifices would be committed preceding a war, or a battle. With the creation of the daraich (plural form of the word “darach”), to appease the triad of deities they most closely worshipped and were thought to communicate with, victims were sacrificed with what is called a threefold death. Early accounts describe this as victims being slaughtered violently, the three actions taken against them each having the ability to kill them._

_Accounts of the deaths committed by the daraich describe the threefold death to this triad of deities. Evidence from an early translation: “The head must be struck, the throat pierced [slashed or cut], and the breaths must be taken.” This last act suggests strangulation. Victims of this sacrificial ritual would be found with three wounds that could have each been the cause of death: the head bashed in, throat cut, and strangulation, typically done with a garotte._

_The druids condemned these acts and sought to—_

Sam stopped reading. He’d been steadily taken notes as he’d done so, and now he looked at what he’d compiled, satisfied.

He called Jody.

Jody sat at a table, the files around her. She was beginning to find a connection the the old victims. They all had had some position of authority. A police officer, teachers, parents, soldiers, even a government official. Perhaps the connection was weak, but it was the only one she could find.

Her phone started ringing, and she answered. “Yep.”

“We’re dealing with a darach,” Sam said, forgoing a greeting.

“A what?”

“A _darach_. It translates to ‘dark oak,’ and was a subset of druids. The meaning of druid is ‘wise oak,’ so a dark oak—”

“Is a dark druid,” Jody finished.

“Yeah, exactly.”

“So they sacrifice people?” she asked.

“Yes, committing what was known as the threefold death.”

Jody sat and thought. “So that’s what we’re looking at here. All the files I dug up described the deaths as the same, and that poor girl we found…” She shook her head. “Sam, how do we even deal with this? And _why_ would someone do that?”

“Usually the daraich would do this predating a battle.”

“But there’s no battle coming up.”

“There could be,” Sam said. “Who do we know of that’s becoming violent and might turn into a demon again?”

“Shit, that could be related?”

“We’ve run into other creatures who have tried to protect themselves from more powerful beings in the past.”

Jody sighed, taking this information in. Then, she informed Sam, “I found a connection between the victims. All authority figures.”

“Wait, then what about the girl?”

“After asking around, I found out that she was a babysitter. I didn’t think it was important at the time, but—”

“She had power over someone.”

“Exactly. Sam, how do we kill this thing?”

There was pause, and then Sam cleared his throat, explaining, “We have to burn them.”

“Huh, thought it’d be harder.”

“Daraich have powers.”

And… there it was. “Fuck.”

Sam heaved in a breath, and let it out, sounding frustrated, and maybe a little worried. “Yeah.”

Jody’s walkie blinked with a red light, and Jody said, “Hold on, Sam. I gotta go.”

“Come in, Sheriff Mills. Come in. Over.”

She pressed the button to allow herself to talk. “Standby. Go ahead. Over.”

“We got a 187 over here. Over.”

“Say again?” Jody asked, standing. She hadn’t realized there would be another victim so soon.

“187. Body mutilated. Over.”

“Roger that. Where’s the body? Over.”

Jody was given the location. “Affirmative. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Over and out.”

Immediately, she called Sam, “Sam, we got another one.”

When they got to the crime scene, there were already had a few deputies there, and forensics were showing up to swarm the place, doing their job with vigorous detail.

Sam felt sick as he looked at the body.

“Do we know who it is?” he asked Jody.

“Used to babysit him as a kid,” she let him know. “Heard that he moved back here, and became a high school teacher after college.” Jody was teary-eyed as she looked at Sam. “I don’t want to see any more of my people killed. What do we do?”

“I have an idea.”

“What is it?”

Sam frowned, and then winced. He ran a hand through his hair, and then over his face. He let out a frustrated, and discontented growl.

“ _Sam_ , tell me.”

Sam heaved in a deep breath, and then said, voice rough as it came out, “How do you feel about being bait?”

Rain poured down on Jody, and she raised her hands to grip at the cord that had gone around her neck, securing her to the oak tree, even as it strangled her.

She kicked feebly. The cord cut through her hands. A choked out cry left her, and then she tried to gasp in air. It wouldn’t come in.

Sam. Where was Sam?

_He’ll be here. He has to be._

“Your friend won’t be coming,” the darach murmured, the voice of a woman.

_No. No._

Jody wanted to ask why, but she couldn’t get air in. Was this how she was going to die?

Sam groaned, his head aching and throbbing fiercely. Blood had trickled into his right eye, and had nearly made its way inside his air. The cut on his injured head was large, and the blood had even soaked into his air. The darach had hit him with a rock, and now it was all coming back to him.

Rain was cleaning the blood off, even while it soaked Sam all the way down to his skin.

He got up, nearly slipped in the mud, and then leaned against a tree.

“Jody…” he rasped.

Dizzy, he picked up the flamethrower he had with him, and then started to run, slipping a great deal on the wet ground, to where they’d left Jody as bait.

He slid down a hill, having thrown himself down it on his back, giving up on walking down that; he would’ve fallen. Sam clambered to his feet once at the bottom, and he blinked blood out of his eyes.

There she was, tied to that tree with the very weapon being used to kill her.

“Hey!” Sam cried.

The darach hissed in some kind of frustration, and then it released the garotte.

Jody gasped, and coughed, but then collapsed to the ground, mud splattering on her cheek.

She didn’t get up. But he knew she was alive. Just unconscious.

Sam came forward as the darach stepped towards him, and he raised the flamethrower. He could barely see in the dark, but he was sure that shadow was the darach raising its hand. A fierce pain took hold of Sam’s body, even as a choking, poisoned wind swept towards him and into his lungs. It went through his throat, his nose, even as his body felt like his bones were splintering.

Sam fell, screaming in agony.

_Fight through it, Sam. Fight it._

Jody groaned and shifted on the ground, and the darach turned its power on her. She screamed herself into unconsciousness.

Sam trembled, body in shock as it remembered the pain, but he clambered to his feet, and he ran, putting himself nearly right in front of the darach.

“Say hi to your gods for me, bitch,” he said, pressing the trigger on the flamethrower.

The darach’s screams and wails as it went up in flames were high-pitched, seeming to pierce his eardrums. Sam didn’t let up until it fell to the ground, its body a charred crisp.

He breathed hard, and almost fell, still hurting from his head. He turned, and saw Jody trying to move again. He went to her, getting on his knees.

“Did you do it?” she croaked out.

He held her, and she held him. Was that blood from her palms seeping into his jacket?

“Yeah, I did it,” he assured. “All thanks to you.”

“Glad you could recognize my hard work.”

Sam clapped her on the back, and pulled her closer. “Anytime, Jody.”

He helped her up, and together they stumbled out of the woods, Jody kicking the body of the darach for good measure as they passed it. They made it to the Impala, then to Sioux Falls General Hospital. As they sat in the waiting room, Sam with a hand on Jody’s knee that she was bouncing up and down, she looked at him, and smiled.

“I’m really glad we were able to save people from dying,” she told him.

“Hey, it’s part of the job.”

She leaned into him, as a mother would a child, and Sam grinned despite how out of it he felt and how much he hurt.

“And it feels damn good.”

“It sure as hell does.”


End file.
